


Papaoutai?

by KingsAndThieves (TehLotteh)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Character Study, Daddy Issues, F/M, Family, Slideshow through moments of Adrien's life, not a songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 13:34:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6377263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehLotteh/pseuds/KingsAndThieves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>  She looks up as the door opens and a man with sand-coloured hair and a pressed suit steps in, and Adrien gurgles and reaches for the man he loves as much as the woman in front of him and suddenly he's in the air, pulled close in strong arms and snuggled under a sturdy chin, kisses planted in his fuzzy mess of platinum hair and skin caressed under the gaze of grey eyes that peer at him from behind rounded glasses.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>  This is how his days have always been, and how they always will be, filled with love and care and joy and cheer. His father may not always be present at all times but when he is there he condenses all his love into those precious few hours and Adrien clings to them as his comfort, digs his fingers in deep and refuses to let go.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Papaoutai?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song of the same name by Stromae.
> 
> Tout le monde sait  
> Comment on fait des bébés  
> Mais personne sait  
> Comment on fait des papas.
> 
>  
> 
> _[Everyone knows_  
>  How to make babies,  
> But nobody knows  
> How to be a father] __

_He is one year old._

His mother is dancing round the kitchen as she cooks, singing happily to him and reaching over, bopping the edge of his nose with a delicate finger as she passes by him on her way to the cupboard. The radio is playing the latest tracks on the station and he claps his hand with an excited gurgle as she comes to crouch before him, lightly placing her hands either side of his. She raises them up to her lips and blows a raspberry, her eyes as green as his holding his gaze as she tells him how much she loves him, repeats it with a soft kiss to each digit on his tiny hands.

Her eyes are rimmed with liner, her lashes full, her lids darkened with shiny powder. Her cheeks are highlighted with blusher, her jawline accentuated, her lips plumped full with a dark red that leaves little marks against his skin. Her hair is curled and pinned to the side of her head and held in place with a beautiful butterfly clasp that glitters under the kitchen light.

Her smile, however, is natural and genuine and her laugh rings through the room like the sweetest chime of the church bells he hears whenever they're out in the city.

He loves her, and it is the most powerful emotion he has ever experienced. He may be hungry, or in pain, or tired, but when she is with him nothing matters for she is his whole world and he is hers and when she promises she will be with him forever, he knows it is the truth.

She looks up as the door opens and a man with sand-coloured hair and a pressed suit steps in, and Adrien gurgles and reaches for the man he loves as much as the woman in front of him and suddenly he's in the air, pulled close in strong arms and snuggled under a sturdy chin, kisses planted in his fuzzy mess of platinum hair and skin caressed under the gaze of grey eyes that peer at him from behind rounded glasses.

This is how his days have always been, and how they always will be, filled with love and care and joy and cheer. His father may not always be present at all times but when he is there he condenses all his love into those precious few hours and Adrien clings to them as his comfort, digs his fingers in deep and refuses to let go.

His happiest memories are when he falls asleep bundled against his father's chest, his mother curled into the elder male's side as she hums a sweet lullaby, and two soft pairs of lips wish him all the best as his dreams carry him off into rest.

 

_He is four years old._

He's sat in front of the grand piano in their study, his tiny fingers barely managing to reach the keys as he plays a scale with single-minded concentration, his face screwed up with the effort and his tongue peeking out the edge of the mouth as he ensures that his thumb does not slip off the black key and onto the white, that he does not make that sound that is wrong, that he does it all right.

His mother praises him as he finishes, stroking his hair from his face and telling him how proud she is of him. He beams up at her with unadulterated joy, and sees his father smiling over the top of the sketch-book he has in hand, sat on the chaise longue at the side of the room, his hand moving with practiced ease and making things of his imagination emerge from the paper armed only with a pencil.

Adrien loves watching him work, fascinated as he creates masterpieces from a blank canvas, as drawings and designs become fleshed out with fabric and silks and satins and draped over his mother or even himself. He wants to make magic as well, and his father assures him he will. He promises him that he will achieve greatness, and Adrien promises him that he will make him proud.

Although he finds piano hard, he knows how much his parents love it. His mother reminds him that here he is making music from nothing, he is painting beauty with his fingers that is made even more special because it is instantaneous, every performance is a once in a lifetime occurrence – no matter how he may try, no tune is ever played the same twice. He pours his heart and soul into learning to play, and although his pieces are simple and for beginners, his parents soak it all up and cherish it in their hearts.

He makes a wrong note; he cringes, and looks to them as he begs for forgiveness, but there is nothing but warm smiles and words of encouragement to try again, to pick himself up, to learn from his mistakes and try not to replicate them.

His fingers find the starting key once more, and he presses, and he thinks and he remembers, and he does not make the same error twice.

 

_He is eight years old._

He is in his first fencing competition. The clothing is heavy and he is uncomfortably hot, but his parents are watching and they are proud and he pushes through. He is told he is talented, that he picks it up easily, that if he put his mind to it he could go far.

His opponent is a boy his age but he is less steady on his feet, is not fortunate enough to possess the Agreste grace, and Adrien side steps his lunge with barely a thought as he brings his small rapier round, landing a touch against the boy's side. The praise from the judge, the cheering from his mother and the wide grin from his father, all envelop him with such force that he feels he is drowning.

The other boy cries in upset at his defeat, but Adrien just steps up to him and tells him that he did really well, that he should not be sad, that he will only continue to improve and that he looks forward to challenging him again one day soon.

He does not see how his mother bawls her eyes out as she witnesses the kindness straight from her son's heart, not some outward guise he had learned, but something he did without prompting, without coaching. Her son was golden at his centre and she loved him more and more with each day.

He returns home with his first trophy, and it is placed in the cabinet next to his first front cover photo, his first piano certificate, and his first Chinese pen pal letter.

 

 

_He is ten years old._

His mother is sick.

She has been bed-ridden for almost a month now, but he knows she will be alright. They will be alright.

Bad things are what happens to other people, to those starving in the streets, to people living in countries afflicted by tsunamis, ravaged by war, to people who lost family members to deadly diseases.

Whenever he is not studying or training he is curled up in bed with her, under the thick blanket that her mother had given her, a baby blue that usually brought out the pale complexion of her skin so well. He snuggles under it and moves to press against her side, grinning to her warmly as he settles his tablet on the bed between them, already having chosen a film for them to watch together.

It is how his days always are now, and how they always will be. Today they are watching Dumbo, and he notices that she cries during Baby Mine. He wipes her eyes and asks her what's wrong, and she merely smiles to him and tells him it is something only a parent understands and that maybe one day, when he has children of his own, he will understand as well.

He just curls up tighter to her side and butts his head under her chin, making sure she is tucked in under the blanket and kept warm. Her hand finds him under the fabric and she twines her fingers with his, and they lie there, and they watch.

She reminds him that he is her beloved son, her world, her everything, and that no matter what happens in life she wants him to remain strong. She does not want him to lose who he is, and he is confused.

He asks her what she means.

She tells him he'll understand one day.

 

_He is eleven years old._

The bed is empty.

The blanket is folded at the end, cold and abandoned.

His heart feels the same way.

The funeral was a week ago but still he does not understand. The walls of the house, once so warm and comforting, something to keep him safe, feel crushing and stifling and yet he feels so terribly alone.

He climbs onto the bed and curls around her pillow, pulling the blanket over him, and lets his tears fall in silence. He does not sob and he does not shudder for he has tried to cry and he has tried not to cry and neither makes the pain go away.

There are new people in the house. A sturdy man who says nothing is to be his driver. A woman with red and black hair who also says nothing is to be his tutor.

He asks if she is to be his step-mother as well.

His father yells at him to get out.

His childhood years of hugs and hot chocolate and mindless dancing in the hallways are long gone. He has heard of the folly of childhood innocence and hows its loss marks the passage from boy to man but he has none and he feels no older. He feels like a baby playing at an adolescent life, his skin too big for him and his burdens too heavy.

He wants to return to the days of lying on the floor in pyjamas and playing Monopoly, of bedtime stories, of trips to the park and the simple joys of splashing in puddles and ice cream on his nose.

He wants the sound of laughter to ring through the house once more.

He wants to see his father smile.

He wants to see his father full stop.

 

_He is fourteen years old._

He has run away from home to school.

His lungs are burning, his legs are shaking, but he has to make it to the building before they realise he is missing.

He fails.

A man needs him and above all else he is a gentleman, and so he helps him at the cost of his freedom.

He is escorted home. His father is furious.

No longer is he the man's pride and joy.

He is an embarrassment, a scandal fourteen years in the making.

His father turns his back on him.

He turns his back on his father.

 

_He is fifteen years old._

His body is in agony.

For once it is not because he moonlights as a superhero, but for reasons completely out of his control.

His skin is cloaked in sweat, his muscles aching, his head pounding. He has caught a fever and he feels like he could die.

He fancies he can hear his mother's voice soothing him, pleading for him to rest, a soft caress against his forehead that cools him down and allows him to recuperate some much needed strength.

He dreams of her laugh, of a public dinner celebrating one of his father's expositions. The two of them are all dazzling smiles and bright voices, and Adrien is nestled comfortably between them as their arms wrap over his shoulders. They show him off for they could not ask for any more in their life, yet they also protect him, shield him from those who would do him harm.

He wakes alone and in the dark, aware of the damp cloth resting above his eyes that had sparked the whole thing, little black paws tugging it in a poor attempt to smooth it out.

He asks if his father had paid him a visit.

The expected answer is all he needs to numbly force himself to give in to sleep once more.

 

_He is sixteen years old._

He has just let out a half-decade of frustration at his father's arrogance from behind a black mask.

His father regards him with suspicious eyes and suspicious words, and Adrien can do nothing but slink out of the room.

He has made a grave mistake. His father is intelligent and he is eagle-eyed, and Adrien has made too many slip ups to be excused.

The house defence system.

The atrium.

The way his eyes lingered on the portrait of his mother.

His insistence on getting the man to safety with a fervour that even Ladybug had noticed.

His heart aches to love and to care, so much so that it will push all it has on to a man that cares not for it.

That evening, his father hugs him. Adrien doesn't know what to think. His body freezes and then he melts, his mind assaulted with memories of his youth, of warm arms and warmer laughter and if this is dying, with his life passing before his eyes, then he will die happily in order to remain there forever.

The spell is broken when his father comments on his ring, the only thing in his life he treasures enough to care about aside from his Lady, and he is immediately put on the defensive.

He curls his hand close, a snide remark slipping out his lips before he can help it.

His father turns from him, just as he has done all those times before, and Adrien turns from him.

He can feels the eyes of his mother staring at him from his desktop and he hangs his head in apology, for he has failed her.

He is not as strong as she thought he was, and he has let her down.

 

_He is eighteen years old._

He stumbles through the front door of the mansion in a drunken stupor, the world tilting dangerously as his foot catches on the step and he sprawls on the floor, the ridiculousness of it all forcing a ragged laugh out of his throat.

The silent walls greet him as always, and he yells back at them, made bolder with the knowledge that they will not respond. They no longer have ears, nor eyes, nor harsh words to reprimand him for letting his image slip.

He always knew that people would do stupid things for love – he was no exception. He had thrown himself in front of bullets and buses and blasts for his Lady, and he wondered just how far he would go.

Would he kill another man to save her?

Would he kill three?

How about forty?

Would he manipulate children in order to steal stones of power in order to bring her back from the dead.

The answer scared him and he dropped his head heavily to the marble floor, because being unable to hate the man who made his life hell was pretty much the opposite of what he had been hoping for.

Nobody else understood. How could they? To them all they saw was the designer, the villain. His friends had only seen the cold shoulder he had given Adrien, and they resented him for it, for the terror he had wrought on Paris.

None of them had seen the joy on his face, the encouragement, the large finger curled around a tiny hand as he took his first steps, the look of pure amusement in his eyes as Adrien had managed to smear chocolate spread all over his face, heard the raw panic in his voice when he nearly witnessed his son run over by a mad driver near the park.

All anyone saw was the name, the brand, the actions. None of them saw the father, the husband, the widower.

None of them saw how he had broken after his wife's death. None of them saw how he recoiled from his son when he saw that everything he tried had the adverse effect.

He wasn't father material. He had always followed his wife, in everything in their family, and without her he had lost faith in himself.

Adrien understands. He is a follower too.

He barely registers the sound of his own follower as she steps in, murmuring her name as she drops to her knees beside him and gathers him into her lap. He doesn't hear himself whimper her name as she cards her fingers through his hair, wiping the tears from his face as he lets all the hurt out in the knowledge that drowning his sorrows most definitely didn't work.

He would have thought that after the first, second or even eleventh time, he would have trusted experience, but that wasn't how he liked to work any more.

There was always chance for something to change, of that he was sure.

 

_He is thirty years old._

Marinette is asleep and he is walking round their living room at two in the morning, his son bundled in his arms and tucked under his chin as he hushes him, eager to get the child back to sleep.

He has panicked himself through most night in the past year, the build up, the insecurities, the what-if-I'm-not-good-enoughs, the what-if-I-hurt-hims, and he understands now that they will never go away.

But that doesn't matter.

He smiles to himself as he picks up the card on the fireplace, “Félicitations” pasted on the front in an elegant script with an equally elegant message written on the inside, signed with a title he thought he had lost from his life a long time ago.

Parents might break their promises. They might hurt you. They might make mistakes. They might come into your life, they might leave it.

They might even be the catalyst of problems outside of the family environment.

Rubbing his thumb over the oh-so-familiar handwriting and returning the card to its place on the mantle, he lowers his head and plants a gentle kiss on tousled, blond hair, as he realises that none of this really matters.

All it takes to be a father is the willingness to try.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little ficlet! I find it sort of relaxing to just step back from plot and explore how characters might feel when faced with certain aspects of their life (although happy ending what?). 
> 
> I'm contemplating doing a few more like this inspired by other songs by Stromae because I find his works to be truly thought-provoking (although they'll probably mostly be focused on the Agreste family - they're just so interesting to me). Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like to see!
> 
> Also I'm always around to chat on tumblr @kingsandthieves (I've had a username change, if that looks unfamiliar).


End file.
